And a room full of larger-than-life-size costumes of bulldogs, pigs, Pink Panthers, dragons, doughboys, bananas, carrots and an army of Santa Clauses-next to a whole room full of packaged gore such as forearm wounds, flesh wounds, intestines, pools of blood, piles of brains and Sheets of Scars (the glue-on kind).

``Actually this whole place started 25 years ago when I was selling wigs out of the trunk of my car,`` he says. The venture began when he finished a tour of duty in Vietnam and his buddy needed help peddling wigs to local beauty shops.

Though Garcia`s partner eventually dropped out, business picked up and Garcia opened and closed a series of shops, eventually landing at his present location, at 4065 N. Milwaukee Ave., about 20 years ago.

`Can you add . . . ?`

``It started out with wigs,`` says Garcia, who bounces around the shop like a 10-year-old and talks with so much energy it seems as if he`s going to explode any minute. ``Once we got going with the wigs, customers started asking, `Can you add makeup?` and `Can you add costumes?` and `Can you add this and that?` And then the shops next door kept closing and we took them over and the place just sort of grew,`` he says as he motions to the blocklong expanse that also includes a roomful of masks-cardboard, feather, rubber and otherwise.

``Sometimes you have to search for something for a while in here,`` says Galang, ``because there`s so much stuff. And you never know what you`re going to find, especially if you start opening boxes in the back. One time I ripped open a box and found a decaying body in there.``

Okay, it was fake. But Galang says the shock was almost as great as the time he opened up one box of ``adult novelty`` items that-well . . . .

``We just buy stuff in lots. Sometimes we don`t even know all of what it is,`` says Garcia, who hurries with an explanation as Galang goes off to ring up a couple of bottles of ``blood`` being purchased by Bill Bolton, 14.

Bolton, who stops in ``just about every Saturday,`` wants the blood to

``scare a friend,`` just like the time he really fooled his girlfriend or the time he gave his friend`s mother a real shock.

Meanwhile, two rooms over, a middle-aged woman is purchasing a wig to wear at her great aunt`s funeral.

Locks on the market

``This stuff is fun, but the wigs are about 75 percent of the business,`` says Garcia, whose wig clients have ranged from the costumers for Oprah Winfrey`s canceled TV series called ``Brewster Place`` to balding men and chemotherapy patients.

Although the shop does have a mail-order catalog (1-800-USA-WIGS) and private fitting and styling rooms for all customers, Garcia`s stylists will make house and hospital calls for the chemotherapy patients.

``And we get lots of transvestites in here, too,`` says Garcia. ``That`s good. We want their business. Probably one of the most unusual requests we ever had was from a white guy who wanted to be a black woman.``

But no makeup or costume challenge is too much for Garcia`s crew, which has supplied everything from Bozo`s greasepaint to hairpieces for Steppenwolf Theatre.

``We`ll do anything,`` he says, rushing into the room where his current favorite costume is on display.

This one is for people who want to cover not just their heads, but their entire bodies in hair.

``Look at this: I call her Strawberry,`` Garcia says, grabbing the hand of an orangutan costume, complete with head, that`s at least 7 feet tall. ``I just picked her up at the costume show in Florida. I wanted to wear this on the plane back home, but my girlfriend wouldn`t let me.``

Some people just aren`t any fun.

``Well, maybe for Halloween,`` says Garcia. ``You should see it in here then. You can`t move. We`re open around the clock-for 24 hours-for a week!

They line up down the block. You would be shocked to see all the adults in here at getting made up at 4 a.m.``

At 4 a.m.?

``Well, yes,`` says Garcia. ``There`s lots of people who want to be werewolves or whatever. And if they`re going to be a werewolf they want to be a werewolf all day.``